Workforced

Rest In Peace Don Joe…

2012-01-26T15:10:14Z

It’s been ages since I’ve last posted, I know. After being made redundant during the credit crunch I had a brief spell working on a start-up with close friends. In late 2011 I left to pursue my dream: documenting street art and graffiti around the World. Its a long story!

Now, with an archive of over 50,000 photos, we’ve launched the website and Facebook page for the Global Street Art project. I’ve classified the archive to the best of my ability – you can search the archive in lots of cool ways, looking up artists, techniques and content. I have 15 different smoking monkeys (see below for one of them)!

For the time being the easiest way to check us out is on Facebook. I would be very grateful if you could: (a) ‘like’ me on Facebook here and (b) if you’re in a kind mood please post this little snippet as a facebook status:

Please check out and like my friend’s page on facebook: www.facebook.com/globalstreetart. Over the past few years he’s built up and classified an awesome archive of 50,000 street art and graffiti photos from around the World, which is being released on the web over the next 4-6 months!

I’m grateful for all the help I can get! The plan over the rest of my life is to build a permanent bricks-and-mortar street art museum. In the meantime we’re a humble tech start-up company with big ambitions and some amazing photos!I’ve put a few below – I may keep going if it helps move traffic from here to Global Street Art!

Peace,

Don Joe

Piece by Phlegm, in Sheffield, UK, 2011.

How and Nosm painting in Rio, photo from 2011.

From southern Spain, 2011. Artist unknown. I was standing in the river to get that shot. Wet feet!

That’s what a smoking monkey looks like… by Poder in Valencia, 2011.

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Stick and Run

2011-08-18T21:11:48Z

Father forgive me. It has been more than six months since my last confession. It may be this long until my next.

Several years ago, for no particular reason, I went on a sticker campaign in a few different cities. I was never sure why I did it but I can only regret not doing more.

The idea was very simple – take a public sign, modify it, see if anyone notices. Most people didn’t, which was probably why I liked it so much. Here’s what I mean – when you travel on the Tube (London Underground), you often see signs like this:

Its easily modified to something like this…

When you print 1,500 and give them out to your friends they look something like this:

They made it into a London paper at the time and on a few blogs. Now you know who did it. Well, now you know someone you don’t know did it.

Peace and muffins.

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Give Me A Break!

2010-11-10T23:57:03Z

Sitting in the breakroom, thinking about not working, I decided to start scribbling down everything around me. The list reads like the inventory of a waiting room to an unnecessary appointment.

Break Rooms – Part Unum

If it smells like micro-waved Mexican food and newspaper ink then you are either in the break room or a bus station. If you can’t openly swear at the vending machine that keeps mugging you of your change then you’re in the break room; if there’s a homeless man sleeping by the vending machine then you’re in the bus station.

I don’t see how plastic coated tabletops count as much of a break from my desk, which has a plastic coated tabletop. I’m told that most companies don’t have enticing break rooms. There are too few distractions, unless you count well-thumbed magazines advising you how you might dress better this winter on a tight budget or how you and your partner can learn to communicate better without counseling. Actually, that’s not a bad one.

Some companies have cottoned on to the fact that a stimulated employee is more productive. They have chosen to upgrade their fusty old break rooms with lashings of garish paint, bean bags and mind-exercising games, often involving wooden bricks. As if being urged to discover your inner child was not embarrassing enough, these rooms have names like “Zen dens,” “play spaces” or “chat chambers.” You’ll find me purging myself in the vomit vault. Spending time in something called a “chat chamber” is as appealing to me as selling shaving foam to the Taleban.

Back then to the Western World, the break room fridge gets wiped once a week, like my bosses accounts. The break room is just like a kitchen at home except for the signs telling you (1) not to eat other people’s food, and that (2) a really great work community relies on everyone doing their own washing up. One reader kindly sent me this. Someone is paid to make signs like this; that’s their job. Ouch.

If your office has signs like this then please email them over to me here. I’ll run a feature of the worst office signs in the corporate world!

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Bank Robbers…

2010-11-02T09:41:40Z

If you’ve ever been stuck in an elevator with an investment banker you’ll be familiar with the concept of the analyst: someone who gets paid very well to agree with other analysts. Why? If one analyst recommends a bad stock they get fired. If they all do it no one gets fired; they blame the company whose stock it is.

Most analyst jobs are at the same banks who broker shares. It’s in their interest to make you buy and sell stocks because the bank gets a commission each time. Consequently, most analysts are by nature “bullish” and full of bullisht. For the privilege of dodgy information you pay money managers a wad.

It doesn’t matter if the manager makes you money or not, they always manage to take a fee. Its a widely-known that most active fund managers under-perform the benchmarks they track because they buy and sell too often, losing money in broking commissions each time.

But let’s not glamorize the industry; analyst really means ‘looks at spread sheets,’ in much the same way that engineer means ‘fixes your dishwasher’.

Some analysts are ‘quants’, which means they look at even more spreadsheet models. Ironically, if you swap a couple of letters from quant you get a word more accurately describing many of them. ‘Quaint’ of course; many of them are quaint. Short for ‘quantitative’, and often short of charisma, quants are those who use Greek letters to avoid explaining something in English. Quants, like most men, want nothing more than a stable relationship with a model, regardless of whether the model is deeply flawed and lacking any real substance.

The dance between the big-wig portfolio managers, analysts and traders continues as the market ticks up and down day after day, with no one really understanding all that much about what is going on. Not that anyone needs to know what’s going on to pretend they know what’s going on. As long as they can convince investors then there will always be people eager to give away their money. That reminds me, I must call my broker.

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The Riled High Club (Part 2)

2010-10-24T20:50:45Z

Ladies and gentlemen could I please have your attention. As Workforced Air prepares to take off I would be grateful if you could give your full attention to our in-flight safety demonstration:

In the event of an emergency oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling panels. As the plane loses altitude could you please spend your last moments doing Darth Vader impressions. Please put your mask on first because adults do better Darth Vader impersonations than children (the Flight Safety Association has confirmed this).

The cabin crew will now demonstrate the location of emergency exits through the medium of interpretive dance. Flight attendant David will pretend to be a tree. He’s training for a small part in a local theatre production. Well done David.

In the event of a water landing your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. The bread rolls provided in your lunch can also be used.

Your lifejacket can be found in the seat pocket under you. Tie the lace at the side of your lifejacket in a double bow. There will be a prize for the prettiest knot. Your lifejacket also has a small light and whistle to attract attention. If you survive you can take it to a rave. Stand next to the DJ booth and dance like someone has slipped a disco biscuit in your beer. Please inflate the lifejacket after you have left the aircraft, you muppet.

If any of you is thinking of having a cigarette as the plane hurtles towards the ground, go ahead. Its the last chance you’ll get to have a smoke and it’ll be the only cigarette you ever get away with on the plane.

We will also provide cyanide capsules or packets of peanuts for anyone with a nut allergy. Thank you for flying Workforced Air. Please sit back, relax and we’ll start the crying baby in a few minutes.

Whilst flying is one of the statistically safest forms of transport, this offers little comfort to anyone hurtling towards the ground in a flaming mausoleum. I’m pretty sure flying isn’t so safe; what else could a “cross check” be other than the captain making sure the stewardesses have said their prayers?

It was pointed out to me that the black box is normally recovered after a crash. That’s why, starting from next year, all new Workforced Air planes will be made 100% out of black boxes.

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The Riled High Club (Part 1)

2010-10-17T21:32:29Z

As you know, I’ve been on the road lately so this week continues the travel theme. I hope you like it. If you’re reading this on the www.workforced.com blog please leave a comment and let me know you’re out there! I’m out there, somewhere, and looking forward to coming home.

The Riled High Club – Part 1

After re-mortgaging your home for a small sandwich in the airport lounge, you’re herded onto the plane, sandwiched between infants and elephants. I must admit I actually like flying. I’m a huge fan of falling asleep bolt upright, watching movies on small screens and periodically waking up in my own dribble.

I travel economy, or “cattle” as they call it in the industry. I skulk past the smug people in business class, who avoid eye contact as I head bleating to the livestock section. I can’t blame them; it’s hard to see someone walking down the aisle when you’re wearing an eye mask.

Since there is barely enough room in economy class to breathe, and therefore complain audibly, I fly at unpopular times and sprawl across the empty seats. At least crying babies have never been a problem for me; they make me thankful I’ve forgone breeding for the time being. Far better to spend one’s time on the flight jostling over who gets the arm rest for the next five minutes. The unwritten rule is that the armrest is declared free whenever the previous occupier raises their elbows for long enough for someone to slip their elbows underneath.

Bags are stowed, stewardesses check everyone’s crotch to see if it’s obscured by a seat belt buckle and then we’re off. I still don’t understand why I have to turn off my MP3 player during take-off. Surely airplane electronic systems are better designed than to be interrupted by Michael Bolton songs (which can admittedly make many grown men cry)? If Al Qaeda ever thinks this through they’ll stop looking for explosives and just buy iPods instead.

Until next time.

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Pasport Control Freaks

2010-10-11T16:05:50Z

Either I’m on a business trip or my new hobby is collecting receipts. Reimbursement is a lovely word; it makes you order better food, appreciate the mini-bar and tip taxi drivers. It’s much easier to be generous with someone else’s money. Itemised, however, is a less attractive word and it’s not easy explaining why you ordered the blue whale ribs when you were watching pay-per-view porn in the hotel room. This is the situation I again find myself in; far away from home, on a never-ending business trip. Where better to start than at the airport?

Passport Control Freaks

The person who invented the retractable barrier ropes for airports was a smart guy. The person who sold them to airprts was a genius. There’s hundreds of them! Most of them don’t even lead anywhere, someone just connects them up to make a load of sheep pens. I would love to have heard the sales call: “We need how many? Wow, really? That sounds like an awful lot. I mean we only have one terminal and two check-in desks. 200 per check-in desk you say? Well, you’re the expert.” Done.

Stories abound of unfortunate travellers who have been wandering for years through labyrinths of posts and ribbons. Off-balance toddlers, lacking the stature to be thwarted by these barriers, dart about in whichever direction their over-sized heads lead them. Once you have made it to check-in desk, having tripped over the odd toddler or two, you answer the security questions.

“Did you pack the bag yourself?”

“My wife chose most of my clothes, does that count?”

“Has anyone given you anything to take onboard the flight?”

“Former girlfriends have given me a burgeoning sense of sexual inadequacy. Oh, and you gave me a boarding pass; are you in trouble?”

Next you bid your luggage farewell, as you head to Chicago and it begins its journey to Hawaii. Armed with no sharp objects and only your blunt hand luggage, its off to security.

Where would we be without airport security? The flight lounge. We’d be in the flight lounge, siting down having a coffee without losing our shoes, toiletries and dignity. It no fun being five foot something-or-another and having to take off my shoes to be less than five foot something-or-another. I need all the Cuban heels I can get. Still, there is something amusing about watching your shoes roll away from you on a conveyor belt for a catscan.

If you can keep your toiletries through security then your trip has already been successful. I’ve often tried to argue that “Yes, its a big tube of toothpaste but its two-thirds empty.” It never works. I fail to see how losing my tothpaste, or for that matter my toupee wax, and having a bad breath, bad no-hair day presents a threat to national security.

It is my firm belief that the toothpaste, shaving foam and deodorant confiscated by the TSA in America is being re-sold cheaply in China, undercutting local manufacturers in an effort to dampen Chinese industry. I can’t think of any other explanation. Clearly the transport security agency isn’t using your toothpaste or deodorant.

Next week the plane takes off.

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Receptionists: All Front

2010-09-27T23:14:13Z

I once met a man who was the Directors of First Impressions. That was in a Scientology building, he was the receptionist and conductor of Scientology’s famous test, where you hold two metal wands that don’t have anything to do with your stress levels. When the needle moves on the machine (that looks like a radio rescued from a building site) it means the conductance in your skin has changed, which is meant to mean you’re stressed. In actual fact it means someone has changed the channel in the next room.

I was thrown out of the building after wasting the chap’s time as he tried to teach me about kinesthetics. I talked a lot about imaginary pets and then, when his phone rang after an hour of my stinking chat, I asked him if it was Tom Cruise who called. It wasn’t.

Where was I? Ah yes, receptionists: the smiling faces at the front desk, eager to point you where you’re going (even if it’s not where you want to go, it’s where you’re now going). Now, the rumor is that receptionists spend a lot of time days surfing the web and messaging friends. It’s only fair recompense for dealing with snarky business folk who’s every lost minute is another curt question.

“Excuse me, I’m in a rush, do you know where Johnson is? I’m looking for Johnson. Have you seen him? Also, I earn more than you. Should I state that explicitly or should I just lose any vestiges of courtesy for the rest of this interaction?”

Sneer not, Johnson-seeker! Receptionists see everyone on their way into and out of the office and are ideally placed as a hub to the various spokes of office gossip. Hell hath no fury like a receptionist scorned. Nothing else known to man, except McDonalds’ toilet paper, can spread poop so quickly.

Not all receptions are the same though; occasionally I happen upon a small wrinkly man sitting behind a cluster of black and white CCTV screens. He always has glasses, which doesn’t give me much faith that anyone will catch the corporate spies dressed up as janitors who are slipping into the ventilation ducts on the third floor. No, wait, they are in fact janitors.

Of course, you might ask why anyone would want to spend hours watching nothing happen in the elevator bank and on the stairwell. I don’t know but the number of people who have watched Big Brother suggests that the chap at the CCTV desk beat a lot of competition to get the job. I suppose that if you watch the elevator for long enough you might get a picked nostril or a scratched buttock, perchance an adjusted testicle or a slipped toupee. This is why I encourage people to dance whenever they see a CCTV camera. Do it for the receptionist!

Sam Szulc puts copier paper to good use.

p.s. Thanks to Jai Joshi at Tulsi Tree for the award. Cheers dude.

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The Management Crossword

2010-09-17T14:42:53Z

Just a quick one this week because I’m on the road for business again. I’m lying on the freeway hoping to get hit by a truck. Bring on the life insurance claim.

Here follows an example of a management technique that should never have made the transition from textbook to reality. I’m sure you’ve all been ‘motivated’ by this management technique before. For the love of all that is decent, never insult your subordinates by asking them to complete a business crossword with you. The following was on poster hanging in a manager’s office:

Whilst credibility is a noble aim, this is not the best way to achieve it. When you take a word as long as credibility, one is certain to start entertaining synonyms, fillers and short phrases. Ironically, the crossword did nothing for the manager’s credibility. This is more appropriate:

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The Management Zoo

2010-09-08T00:37:20Z

‘Tis the season to send employees all over the shop. I’m being thrown between cities for the next couple of weeks so apologies again for intermittent posting. Hopefully things will calm down after my company is disbanded by Federal decree. As everyone likes a post with a table and an illustration (the New York Times was founded on this premise), I’ve cobbled together every management animal I’ve ever worked with.

The Management Zoo

Most managers have a few things in common: (1) they park in better spaces, (2) they get paid more and (3) they don’t do any real work. It’s clear that managers are lazy because their secretaries plan their lives, they read ‘executive summaries’ and they spend a lot of time in meetings, where very little gets done.

Managers would have you believe that they need to know less detail about more topics. If that’s the case then the CEO must know nothing about absolutely everything. Judging by BP’s ex-CEO Tony Hayward’s testimony in the Supreme Court that might be about right.

There is no one type of manager; they are as varied as the spots on a teenage leopard’s face. They would have you call it ‘management styles’, when really the differences come from which two-day courses they have been on. So what differentiates these species in the giant corporate zoo?

The brilliant Sam Szulc does it again.

Species of Manager	Species Habits – Identifying Traits (or SHIT for short)
Dog	As you know dogs are very territorial. Dog managers hold their talented employees back, lest they lose them to another team. Dog managers hang round you when you’re trying to work, lapping up attention, before barking that the team are behind. Heaps of SHIT. Just like a real pooch, these managers metaphorically hump your leg because they don’t want you to leave them pining for attention.
Seagull	Full of SHIT. Flies in, flaps around making lots of noise, craps on everything and flies off again.
Pig	Sexist, judgmental and generally boorish (or perhaps boarish in this case), pigs can be found wallowing in SHIT. Pigs can do quite well in companies today under the guise that they just “tell it like it is”. Once in a while pigs squeal once too often and they get their bacon cooked in an acrimonious lawsuit.
Parrot	Repeats the words it hears the most frequently: squawk, cost control, squawk, headcount reduction! Parrots don’t think for themselves; they see further by perching on the shoulders of their superiors. Pretty to look at, inoffensive and easily promoted.
Whale	A whale manager is one of those managers you don’t understand. You can hear them whining but you have no idea what they mean.
Squirrel	Squirrels hoards the company’s nuts. A squirrel is the kind of manager who lowers your performance review because they don’t want to see you get a decent bonus. I remember meeting one such squirrel: “Well I expected you to achieve an exceptionally high standard and you did that. Therefore you met my expectations and I have graded you as meeting expectations; it wouldn’t feel right to grade you as above expectations.” Thanks.
Yeti	Probably a myth. The yeti manager inhabits the higher plains of the company, after deservedly being promoted up and up and up. If you’re lucky to catch a glimpse of one they are probably dashing between meetings, shirking publicity.
Praying Mantis	Religious managers adopt one consistent stance for as long as it takes to pay-off. When they sense weakness in their adversaries they bite off their heads. Pray.
Crabs	Crabs are the micro-managers that irritate you by grabbing onto your balls and squeezing with all their might.
Hyena	Hyenas managers encourage pack behavior and collective laughing for the sake of team spirit. Hyena managers (“Call me Pete”), love to be one of team (as long as they work less and get paid more). Whatever they are involved in, you will be invited, whether mundane (supporting the Boy Scouts), dangerous (hang-gliding) or both (downhill speed quilting). Who promoted the funniest guy in the office?

Some managers are hybrids of different species. Be especially aware of the whale-seagull mix; when they crap on you, it takes a long time to clean up.

Until next time…

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